Improvement and spatial extension of the European Fish Index

EFI+ is a research and technological development project designed to gain new knowledge and to develop and improve new biological assessment methods to meet needs of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The output of the project will be a methodological approach to assess the ecological status of rivers in accordance with the WFD. Therefore the EFI+ project represents a direct and obligatory contribution to the Water Framework Directive in further development and implementation of harmonised fish-based assessment tools and methodology that can be used as a standard method in EU Member States, as well as Candidate countries. The objective of EFI+ is to overcome limitations of the existing European Fisch Index (EFI) produced in the FAME project by developing a new, more accurate and pan-European fish index. Specific tasks are (1) to evaluate the applicability of the existing EFI and make necessary improvements to the existing EFI in Central-Eastern Europe and Mediterranean ecoregions, (2) to extend the scope of the existing EFI to cover very large rivers, (3) to analyse relationships between hydromorphological pressures (incl. continuity) and fish assemblages to increase the accuracy of the EFI, (4) to adapt existing software to the requirements of the new EFI to allow calculation of the ecological status for running waters, (5) to implement and disseminate the EFI and supporting software by integration of the project results in the CIS activities (Common Implementation Strategy) and ongoing national and international monitoring programmes such as the Joint Danube Survey and to present results in end-user workshops and an international conference.